Was Prohibition a good policy? Was our repealing it a mistake?
China ruined herself,
The USA never came close to that level of opiate use when it was legal here. (In fact, by the feds' own figures the percentage of addicts was lower then than now.)
and European drug-tolerant states (the Netherlands, Switzerland) don't exactly present a rosy picture of unrestricted or slightly-restricted drug use.
How do they not?
'Joao Goulao, Portugal's top drug official, said that before decriminalization "we had a huge problem with drug use ... around 100,000 people hooked on heroin."
'Then they started treating drug use more like a parking ticket. People caught with drugs get a slap on the wrist, sometimes a fine.
'Independent studies have found the number of people in Portugal who say they regularly do drugs stayed about the same. And the best news, said Goulao: "Addiction itself decreased a lot."
'At first, police were skeptical of the law, but Joao Figueira, chief inspector of Lisbon's drug unit, told me that decriminalization changed lots of minds.
'"The level of conflicts on the street are reduced. Drug-related robberies are reduced. And now the police are not the enemies of the consumers!"
'And teen drug use is down.'
It created a lot of problems, but it solved one problem that would have otherwise gone unaddressed: the incidence of alcoholism fell, and overall consumption fell. Patterns of consumption also changed; white liquors and wine almost went away, and the nation's drinkers rotated to beer and brown liquors.
America in 1934 was a lot less lush and drunken than America in 1914.
Prohibition broke the freedom of drunkards and alcoholics and put the whip in other hands, esp. those of women who were Not Amused by their husbands' recreant behavior.
'Joao Goulao, Portugal's top drug official, ....'
....is in the same position as a Clintonoid or Obamarrhoid SecDef who is called upon to defend either DADT in the first instance or its repealer in favor of open catamitism and barrack-room sodomy in the other.
He likes his job and he knows what the politicians want, so he's not the best guy to ask.
Oh, and btw, "subverted authority" is a legitimate debating technique. Unlike appeals to motive, ad-hom, and all the rest of the Leftist toolkit.